But when once the deception had been decided on, the busy, acute brain, as keen as ever, set to work strenuously to perfect all the details of the business. And something more. The hidden light was to burn as brightly as ever behind its screen of lies; the dead hand was to strike as viciously as of old, the stilled voice to sting through other lips. Gastineau studied Herriard and came to the conclusion that he was fitted for the purpose he had in mind. He could have done with a little less honesty, but the scheme in its very character contained an element which would neutralize that. Paul Gastineau was not going to play the dead man in aught save in name. He was still a power. The sword with which he had fought and gained so many encounters had snapped in his hand, but he would do some savage execution yet with the jagged dagger it had become. He was not going to lie still and impotently watch the unchecked triumphs of the rivals and enemies he hated and despised. The sole sharer of his secret was clever, ambitious, sick of waiting for his chance, and, by Heaven, he should have it. Accordingly he one day considerably startled Herriard by proposing to him a scheme, extraordinary enough, yet of obvious feasibility. It was simply this: That they should return to London secretly, and that he, Gastineau, out of gratitude for the services rendered him, should repay service for service by putting the whole of his great talents at his young friend’s disposal to the furtherance of his career. Herriard, in a word, was to be the mouthpiece of the stricken man’s brain. Gastineau should be the dramatist and stage-manager, Herriard the actor, the manifest form of the invisible spirit.